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Some Policemen and Mall owners have said, The 26th of December the day after Christmas seems to be the one of the most violent days in America’s malls. People are pent up from being with their family,”

Closed schools, social media, the mall and juveniles with nothing to do? Can be combustible mix. The victims: the stores mall owners and terrified shoppers.

Shopping malls have long replaced Downtown’s as a social gathering place for teenagers. If its often the place where boys and girls meet for the first time. It is also the place to settle scores.

For two days, shoppers at Arden Fair Mall, one of the largest malls in the Sacramento Area was terrorized by out of control juveniles in and outside the mall resulting in damages inside the mall and patrons cars in the mall parking lots.

There were many violent events involving juveniles last week in shopping malls across the country.

Some malls across the country have instituted a “Parental escort policy” that requires teens under the age of 18 to be with a parent or guardian who is 21 or over to enter. Most of the shopping centers have these restrictions only on weekend evenings, but some keep them in place seven days a week.

The “Parental escort policy” used at Shopping Malls in other states may be at odds with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Actthat specifically outlaws discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation.

Gen Z

Generation Z (individuals born between 1995 and 2009) spend nearly 50 billion dollars a year and unlike Millennial’s,Gen Z prefer traditional shopping in stores. Should Arden Fair place a ban on this group they may simply take their dollars to other area Malls.

Social Media and Pandemonium

Before cell phones and social media. some one would make a couple of calls and tell others there is gonna a fight at 14th and Broadway. Within minutes, nearly a hundred juvenilles show up at 14th and Broadway to witness the fight. A prankster might push one juvenile into another juvenile and another fight take place. A mistaken punch, another fight with spectators becoming participants.

Today, with social media, a single post can reach hundreds with in minutes.

By all accounts, the security at Arden Fair was overwhelmed.

Anticipation

One example of a prepared Mall

Cherry Hills, New Jersey is a suburb of Philadelphia.

On Dec 27 2017, Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey, noticed more teenagers in the mall than usual. A week before, Police Chief William “Bud” Monaghan appealed to parents not to leave their teenage children unattended at the mall. The Police Department and mall management had jointly prepared for trouble, often sparked by social media organization. that they had seen in previous years at the mall.

The Police and mall owners had several meetings to discuss how to handle such situations. The police department assigned additional officers to the mall and the mall added additional Security Guards.

Police said between 700 and 1,000 juveniles were milling in the evening near the food court hen disturbances broke out. One fight became several. In the past, there had been many disruptions and damage to the mall. But police and mall security officers, anticipating trouble this time of year, were present in large numbers, and the teens were quickly corralled. There was no widespread vandalism and only minimal disruption for shoppers, authorities said Wednesday as merchants lifted their gates for the start of another day of business.

Security and local police departments in many malls, monitor activity on social media. Adding extra security and police during holidays.

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Its 2018, another year filled with stupid adults who shouldn’t leave their homes without professional supervision.

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Despite all the warnings, every year shoppers fill the cars with gifts and return to the mall to shop. Once their shopping is completed they return to an empty car with a broken window. At an Sacramento area mall yesterday. The victim thought the security camera would protect their belongings. His wife, wants the mall to replace the items since the crime happen on their property. Many of the victims will not take responsibility for their stupidly. These crimes will happen in all the best neighborhoods, shopping malls, hotels, parking garages and airports this weekend. With Common Sense missing in action.

Stupid on Parade

Why brave the crowds at the malls, when people make it so easy for thieves to simply break a window. Everyone at their (the thieves) home will be genuinely surprised at Christmas.

They broke into my car? I was just gone a minute! Yes, I left my purse on the front seat, but I locked the door. I’m not totally stupid!

I think we packed everything, my Camera his meds. Were so excited we haven’t seen our children in months. Everything is packed and on the porch so we’ll be ready in the morning.

I left my car running, I always do I was just running into the store for some cigs. Someone just took my car!!! Its Fucking Christmas, who does that?

“This is Ridiculous” (all these people)

We missed out flight. It wasn’t my fault, NOT ONE PERSON would let our family go ahead of them!

We told the hotel,we would arrive at 8:07 where are they?

Do you mind, if I go in front of you?

I only have two items…….

My family are on their way and I have no food at home….

I have a fear of crowds……

My elderly parents are in the car…………

I just can’t wait in this crazy ass long line….

There is room over there, to the right, My RIGHT DAMMIT!!!

This is Crazy, all these people!

Be smart this Christmas

CityFella

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Remember this Oprah? If your under 35 probably not. This Oprah went on a liquid diet and lost a ton of weight. In the wagon is fat, the fat represents the weight she lost. The fat she hoped was gone forever. Look at those jeans, the belt, her posture, I’m sure, as she was getting dressed, she said to herself, ‘I’m one hot bitch!”

After the weight returned I wonder how long she held on to those jeans. its possible she still has them. And Oprah, your still one hot Bitch!

A billion years ago I lost 122 pounds, like Oprah my weight was in the past tense, never to return. I threw away my chubet clothes and headed for the Jean Factory on Market Street. I spent my entire check on cotton and polyester shirts. (the fashion of the day). No big and tall stores for me (past tense) .

I think I gained weight on the bus to my apartment, the clothes seemed tighter at home. Within a week, there was a problem, it had to be the Indian cotton, it shrinks faster than good ole american cotton. Even the polyester and the plastic buttons were sub par, blame Bangladesh.

Weight has been an issue all my life. I have lost thousands through various weight loss programs. However,what I learned from the first weight loss is to hold on to your clothes.

My closet is a virtual men’s store, with a wide range of sizes. I try not to be too trendy, so a year or years from now I’m not stuck with pleated bell bottoms. However, there was this pair of pants. I bought them in Harlem. It was love at first zip. I wore them out of the store. They were the type of pants that made you stand taller. I felt hot and sexy in these pants with the copper zippers. Zippers everywhere, front, back, legs. These where the pants I was going to be buried in. Yessss, it was just that serious!

After a year or so, the pants ended up in my store until I could zip them again. Every once in a while I would attempt to put the pants on. With every ounce of weight I loss ,I’d try the pants. . This went on for years. Then one day I was able to get them past my “we are the world thighs” but still unable to zip them.

One day ,I was able to zip of my sexy jeans sort of. Never mind I could barely breath and the uber tight jeans didn’t look sexy. They zipped. A win!

Getting in my car was dicey. There was a small hole in the right thigh. As I moved my foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal, the hole grew larger. Now a normal person would have returned home and put on a suitable pair of pants. But I was at the mall already and since I was only going to J.C Penney’s the pants should hold up.

The Computer says No!

As I was getting out of my car, something ripped.. I furiously checked the pants, nothing. Well almost, the hole had gotten larger. I parked on the upper level of the parking garage. The department I wanted was on the second floor. It was going to be a quick in and out.

They relocated my department to the first floor. As I’m going down the escalator one of my prized copper zippers is now open, the good news there is a panel so no brown flesh is showing.

More good news, I could see the department, it was only a few feet from the escalator. My shirt I wanted was nearly front and center, as I leaned over to pick it up, the fabric in the back of my pants pocket gave way and I could feel air. My white Fruit of the Looms are now visible to the shoppers. (Briefs-pencils down) I asked a person on the floor where the men’s room is , so I can inspect the damage. Its on the second floor and the fucking elevator is on the other side of the store. So Its the escalator.

I stepped on the escalator and turned around. Yes its was odd. As you move up every body can see your behind. I wasn’t giving any one a show for free. If they want to see my ass I want dolla bills! Stepping off was tricky.(side step)

In the rest room, it was much worse than I thought. It was the inner seam that ripped leaving me with one seam of defense and it was pulling. The rear rip was bad, it had ripped beyond the line of my looms and my left rear leg was exposed. The coveted zippers were twisted as if they had been in a massive earthquake, to make matters worse, the front zipper would not zip up.

When I returned to from the restroom, there was a salesperson watching me. Finally a break, no one was at the cashier. I had a reason to smile. Just pay and out the door to my car. I had learned my lesson for ever. Just cause it zips doesn’t mean you should wear it. As I reached into my deep back pocket to get my wallet, the front snap popped off hitting the cashier, the front zipper broke.

I’m sure when she came to work that day, she had no idea a big black man pants would explode in front of her.

CityFella

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There was a time in my life when it was all about the Mall. I enjoyed the energy, the Mr’s Fields Cookies, and it was a good place to meet people and to people watch. If I were on vacation, I took out the Yellow Pages and researched the malls in the area, often settling on the largest mall in the area.

As I time went by the Malls were less appealing. The thousands of windows shoppers moving at glacier pace often stopping without warning to glance at something in the window, was becoming too much for this cowboy. If I had to go to the mall, I would park as closes I could to the store I was going into, it wasn’t about browsing, it was about the in and out.

Online shopping was designed for me. I can shop in the comfort of my fruit of the looms. checking sales , return policies and have them dropped shipped to the office.

However there are some things you need to actually go into the store.

Last weekend, JC Penney’s had incredible deals on some items I needed. Sheets and Towels, the ones I currently have are very religious and I was told that I needed to actually touch the towels.

I estimated it would take me 20 minutes to get in and out. I arrived at ten after twelve ( the sale was due to end at 1pm.) At he mall, I parked on the upper level near the escalators and preceded to the third floor. I have shopped at that JC Penneys for more than twenty years and rarely go beyond the first floor.

A Whole New World

OOOOO MMMM GEEE there was none of the chaos that is on the first floor. The ladies (older) are very warm and accommodating (unlike the the kids who give you the I don’t know- followed by the discreet rolling of the eyes) and happily directed me to where the sheets and towels were. The pay stations had stools. Mama!

There they were (JC Penney’s have never let me down unlike Target-who runs out of the sale items ten minutes after the store opens ) the towels on sale, marked down from $16.00 to $4.99 with a very large variety of colors.

But there were other towels on sale, a super soft towel marked down to $6.99 fro $12.oo . As as I looked around there the selection was vast I was overwhelmed. So I thought I would look at sheets and comeback it should be easier.

Cotton, Egyptian Cotton, Broadcloth, than there are the tread count? Fuck! and they weren’t cheap even on sale. I think I paid twenty dollars for my last set at Big Lots and on saturday they were starting at 25.00 a set.

With 30 minutes left, I went back to the towels and simply grabbed four sets of the purple towels. Then I walked back to the sheet department and couldn’t find the cheap sheets anymore.

I put my towels down so I could focus on the sheets and then couldn’t remember where I left the towels.

My head was hot and my stomach was queasy. This is not my world! Time to ask for help.

Next thing I knew the shoppers swarmed in to help me ( perhaps it was look in my eyes)

One lady found my towels and as she was explaining the difference in quality another women, a complete stranger, strokes my neck with the softest towel I have ever experienced. Yes, I thought, I want those, until I realized they were $30 oo a piece.

The sales person explained thread count was often important in terms of softness and durability. Of course the top of the line sheets was well over $100 a set.

I’m going with the ugly and cheap striped ones and the purple towels.

True to form as I paid for it in the nick of time! A young lady with thick black glasses was removing the sales prices. The Doorbuster for this saturday is over.

The ladies told me to wash and soften the towels and sheets before putting them away.

Last night I put new set of sheets on my bed and towels up in the bathroom.

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Shelley Fralic: Top 5 reasons why Target Canada was an epic failure

Empty shelves and severe lack of ambiance were only part of the problem

It’s noon, Thursday. I am standing in the curtains aisle at Target in Metrotown, the biggest, busiest mall in the province with more than 400 stores.That includes anchor store Target, where there are no curtain rods. None. The shelves are empty.

So is the store. But then, that’s not unusual. Since the U.S. behemoth opened the doors in this location in November 2013, one of its 133 forays into the Canadian marketplace and one of 19 stores in B.C., it’s been the kind of place that one could shoot that proverbial cannon right through.

Oh, there’s a handful of folks here on this day, like most days. Moms with strollers. Teenagers in the makeup section. Seniors in the pharmacy. Maybe two dozen in all roaming about its 85,000 square feet over two levels. Even the in-store Starbucks is slow.

This is a mall that sees 25 million shoppers every year, or 70,000 potential customers a day, which means you’d have to work pretty hard not to make a go of it with that kind of traffic.

So what happened? How did the fabled U.S. chain that had so many Canadians involved in cross-border worship for so many years fail in such an epic way in such a short time with those same Canadians.

Here are five reasons that might help explain things, from the perspective of an average shopper.

1. Sorry, we’re not in the mood

The stores are cold and quiet, cavernous. No background music, no buzz, none of the standard retail atmosphere that pulls us in and makes us buy things we might not otherwise want or need.

2. Where’s the beef?

In Metrotown, like many other Canadian outlets, Target replaced Zellers. Say what you will about Zellers, but there was no messing around when it came to variety. Junior needs new sneakers? Zellers had dozens of styles to choose from. Target? A handful, at most.

3. Talk about minimalism

From day one, the store seemed unable to fill its basic quota. Shelves on both floors were perpetually empty, the aisles full of nothing, as if there were some kind of consumer goods famine.

4. Don’t get your bargains here

Well, it turned out not to be quite the deal Canadians hoped for, with customers disappointed to discover the Canadian price tags came nowhere close to that of similar goods at Target stores in the U.S. A naive expectation, of course, given the vagaries of international trade, but an expectation nonetheless.

To compound the unexpected sticker shock was the pure inconvenience of parting with one’s money. At Metrotown, the cash registers on the main floor of Target are located on the west side of the store, far from the mall entrance. Seniors and child-laden parents viewed the annoying double-back trip from one side to the other and back again — just to spend money on goods that turned out not to be such a good deal — as simply too much trouble.

5. Too big for those U.S. britches

There was a sense that Target’s aggressive foray into the Canadian market in 2011, after buying up more than 200 Zellers locations, was somewhat like an invasion, clean and swift and designed to wipe out its foes.

In hindsight, one wonders if the conversation around the boardroom a few years back went something like this:

We’re a retail industry leader in the U. S.? Right.

We’re a huge hit in the U.S. with Canadian shoppers? Right.

We’re a renowned purveyor of reasonably priced designer goods? Right.

We’re better than the competition, like arch rival Walmart? Right.

So it must be time to tap the consumer wallets in that cold populated land mass north of our 49th? Right.

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First thing first, I love shopping,I hate crowds. I love shopping online in the comfort of my “Fruit of the Looms”

So why am I out at a Costco a gloomy Saturday afternoon? Ninja. I am there for a Ninja Blending system. The Ninja was on sale, a sale ending Sunday,and there is no way in hell am I going to Costco on a Sunday.

Getting into the Cal Expo Costco was frustrating.Tons of traffic-its Saturday. A crazy lady in a Volkswagen Passat makes a U-turn in front of me and then stops,putting on her flashers WHICH makes no sense at all seeing that she is in front of the parking space she wants.

Its its only been five minutes and I am screaming in the car.

U turns,the front, the back, the sides there is no parking spaces available.

But I am on a mission from GOD!

After 34 fun filled minutes, I find a park on the south side of the store near the Tire Center.

I can see carts are in short supply so I scoop mine from a nearby parking stall.

Entering the store, there is a man clearly overjoyed with a 75 inch Samsung TV on his flat bed cart. He is watching it as if it were a newborn child. Random men are giving him high fives….and he is all smiles.

I know where my Ninja is, I missed it the last time it was on sale. I pass the photo area and dart up the far right aisle. and I make a sharp left, my baby is waiting for me.

Wait, I see the display, but no Ninja or jas.

Shasbut ! I turn on to the the main aisle, heading to membership services.. I am a whale going upstream. People are going right,left. What is this Ikea?

At membership, a woman is going on about the expiration date of her membership. she doesn’t buy much and goes into details about the things she has purchased at Costco (who cares lady-lets go already! damm) I am hopeful at the other position, everyone is all smiles, no stories about the olden days. A small child is lying flat on the floor. Only one person is ahead of me,an impatient man is yelling at her-he wants to go. She wants to know if a larger size shirt is available? (At Costco) good luck with that. The man at the counter waved his hand and poof she was gone. My turn

Ninja Please?

The computer says we have 22 of them, the man says. Didn’t see um. I say. He called someone to help me. The man is there in a flash,were off,he is a professional, navigating the crowded aisle with the skill of a football player. Meanwhile, I am trying to keep up with a giant cart without power steering. Nearly took out a child.

He picks up the same, display I picked up. Tilt, the computer is wrong. They are Ninja free. Now its time to return to membership.

I am amazed how good natured everyone is in Costco. Everyone I encountered smiled. Says a lot about a company.

Back at membership the man makes a sound effect as I approach the counter, Ninja right? Can I get it online, yes? What is the closest Costco near you….he asks…. This one, I say. He said, well according to my computer there are 94 in Roseville. Roseville? I respond, shoot me in the head. No way I am going to the madness called Roseville, the other guy chuckles. He says listen, there are 119 in South Sac, go tomorrow, be there when the store opens. I agreed.

I decided since I was there, I would shop for food. Thanksgiving food, dinner food and get other supplies. It went smoother that I expected. There was no wait at check out and I thought I’d order a Chicken Salad outside for dinner.

Que Scary Music…

Wouldn’t you know it… a line. Most of the windows were closed… People are waiting for their food, not happily. A woman is bumping my sizable ass with her shopping cart. I look back and she gives me an insincere sorry. Bump again. oooookay…. Bump, I turn around and I look into her eyes and I put my hand on her cart and I hold on to it- at this time she realizes she was in danger and after a couple of minutes, I released her cart. No more bumps

I’m in the wrong friggin line, Id prepaid for my salad. Should be in the pre-paid line.

I showed them my receipt and my salad is in my hand in mega seconds. Now I am trapped. People with their full carts are in various stages of conversation. I can not get out.

Excuse me, was ignored. I abandon my cart and walked up to a group of women an said I need to get out.! They moved their four carts and baby stroller and freedom.

I can get my Ninja online but at full price. After my experience at Cal Expo, there isn’t a way in hell I was going on Sunday. I will wait for it to go on sale again and shop Costco when its meant to be shopped,on a Monday or Tuesday evening after the holidays